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The Beatles Rock Band
Write the first paragraph of your page here. The Beatles: Rock Band is a 2009 music video game developed by Harmonix, published by MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts. It is the third major console release in the Rock Band music video game series, in which players can simulate the playing of rock music by using controllers shaped like musical instruments. The Beatles: Rock Band is the first band-centric game in the series, and it is centered on the popular English rock group The Beatles. The game had proved to be a huge sales success with multi millions of units sold in its first year. The game features virtual portrayals of the four band members performing the songs throughout the band's history, including depictions of some of their famous live performances, as well as a number of "dreamscape" sequences for songs from the Abbey Road Studios recording sessions during the group's studio years. The game's soundtrack consists of 45 Beatles songs; additional songs and albums by The Beatles were made available for the game as downloadable content. The game was released internationally on 9 September 2009, coinciding with the release of new, remastered compact disc versions of The Beatles albums. It incorporates many of the gameplay features of the Rock Band series; however, it is not an expansion pack for the Rock Band series and content for it and other Rock Band titles is not cross-compatible. Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos described the game as "... a new, full game title production built from the ground up."2 Gameplay mechanics differ slightly from previous Rock Band games, including the addition of a three-part vocal harmony system. Subsequent games in the Rock Band series would reuse these new elements, including vocal harmonies. The game was developed with the blessing and critical input of Apple Corps, including former Beatles Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who both made public appearances supporting the game. George Harrison's son Dhani helped to bridge discussion between Harmonix and Apple Corps, while Giles Martin, son of The Beatles' music producer George Martin, ensured high-fidelity versions of The Beatles' songs would be available. The Beatles: Rock Band was well received by the press, both as a genuine means of experiencing the music and history of The Beatles and as a standalone music video game. Although the game's sales were considered respectable, with more than half a million units sold during its first month of release in the United States, analysts had projected larger sales volumes and attributed the lower sales to waning interest in the rhythm game genre and the video game industry recovery from the late-2000s recession. =Gameplay= The Beatles: Rock Band allows players to perform simulated rock music by providing up to six players with the ability to play three different controllers modeled after music instruments (a guitar controller for lead guitar and bass guitar gameplay, a drum controller and up to three microphones for vocals). Players simulate the performance of rock music by using their controllers to play scrolling on-screen notes. For lead and bass guitar, this is accomplished by holding down colored buttons mimicking guitar frets and pushing the controller's strum bar; for drums, this requires striking the matching colored drumhead, or stepping on the pedal to simulate playing bass drum notes. A "Lefty" mode allows left-handed people to play, by switching which colour the beats are given. When singing vocals, the player must sing in relative pitch to the original vocals. A pitch indicator displays the singer's accuracy relative to the original pitch. For songs with multi-part vocals, players need only to stay in tone with the lead singer to score points and keep their performance meter up, but players earn additional scoring bonuses when they successfully complete phrases in harmony. As in previous Rock Band games, successfully hitting the proper notes in sequence earns points for each player and boosts their "performance meter". Each separate instrument is given a level, defined by their instrument icon, and the average level is also displayed. If a player fails to match the notes, their performance meter drops. If the meter empties, that player is forced to drop out of play, which in turn causes the band's overall performance to drop. Any player to drop out can be "saved" if another player activates "Beatlemania" (referred to as "Overdrive" in other Rock Band titles), which is collected by successfully completing specially marked phrases. These phrases appear in white, and if the phrase is completed, the energy bar, displayed at the bottom of every track, fills by one quarter. Beatlemania can also be used to temporarily increase the amount of points the band earns. Activating Beatlemania is specific to each "instrument". For guitar, the controller must be temporarily shifted to an upright position; for drums, a special "cymbal" (Green, or red for "Lefty" mode) is hit; and for vocals, a noise must be registered by the microphone when prompted. Some alterations to the Rock Band formula were made to preserve the sound of The Beatles' music. Audio cues that provide feedback on how well the band is doing, typically through the crowd cheering, singing along with the lyrics, or booing if the band is failing, are not included. The virtual band members are not booed off the stage if a player fails a song. Rather, the game simply cuts to a "song failed" menu with the option to try again. The song is restarted from the beginning. Variations on Overdrive/Beatlemania activation include the removal of player-controlled audio effects. While guitar players can use the controller's whammy bar on sustained marked note to collect more Beatlemania, this does not alter the sound of the note. There are also no freestyle drum fills in the songs for activating Beatlemania; instead the player continues to perform the correct note sequence before being presented with a note to activate Beatlemania. Throughout the song, players receive points for every note hit, and this is totalled up and displayed at the end of the song, along with a percentage of how many notes they hit, and a rating: 1 to 5 stars. If the score is close to perfect, normally requiring at least 98% of the notes, the rating is five 'gold' stars, instead of the normal bronze. The score is saved and shown alongside the song in the select screen; over time, as the song is replayed, it shows only the highest score. =Development= Prior to The Beatles: Rock Band, no song by The Beatles, nor a cover of a Beatles song, had been featured in any Guitar Hero or Rock Band title, whether as disc-based or downloadable content. The idea of The Beatles: Rock Band came about during a chance encounter between MTV president Van Toffler and Dhani Harrison, son of George Harrison, at a luncheon sponsored by Robert Earl during the 2006 Christmas holiday, shortly after MTV's acquisition of Harmonix.1920 Dhani, having been familiar with the Guitar Hero franchise and learning of the recent acquisition and plans for Rock Band from Toffler, suggested a game based on The Beatles.19 Though both Dhani and Toffler considered the concept an unlikely possibility, their meeting nonetheless spurred Dhani into further discussions with Harmonix's president, Alex Rigopulos. At the same time, Dhani helped to introduce the Rock Band concept to Apple Corps, the music production company created by The Beatles, and its key shareholders Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono.2122 Initial meetings were arranged with the shareholders using an early prototype of the game to garner their interest in the title. One stipulation that the Apple Corps shareholders required of Harmonix was that the game feature songs spanning the band's entire career.120 Harmonix subsequently created a more complete demonstration that used examples of music and artwork that they envisioned for the game. The five-song demo, which included an early build for "Here Comes the Sun", was finished in February 2008. It was used to gain approval from McCartney, Starr, Ono and Olivia Harrison, effectively bringing them aboard the project as creative partners.620 The Apple Corps shareholders considered The Beatles: Rock Band a new way to introduce the band's music to the public. They approved of the songs and venues that would appear in the game, and provided feedback on the artwork, character representations, and storyboards for animation sequences. McCartney and Starr fact-checked certain anecdotes relating to The Beatles while Ono and Harrison provided insight on their late husbands' performances and lyrics. At the developer's request, Ono visited the Harmonix offices late in development to provide critical feedback on several visual elements. In a Wired article, MTV's senior vice president of the games division Paul DeGooyer was quoted saying "She gave the designers hell", with Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos adding, "She really held our feet to the fire". DeGooyer and Rigopulos clarified the statement soon after the article had been published, asserting that the visit was "a high point of the two-year development process" and "has been mischaracterized by some in the press." Though The Beatles: Rock Band aims to present a visual and musical history of The Beatles, the game does not attempt to replicate periods of turmoil between the band members. Rather, it presents a "fantasy version" of The Beatles to better serve the entertainment purposes of the video game. For example, Ringo Starr was estranged from the rest of the band during periods of recording for The Beatles (commonly referred to as The White Album). Thus, he did not perform on certain songs, such as "Back in the U.S.S.R.". In the game, however, the Ringo Starr character plays drums during the animated performance of the song. Category:The Beatles Rock Band